


one for the road

by ottermo



Series: As Prompted [53]
Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: F/M, i just love harun a lot okay, pre-series 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 09:12:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13900881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: Mattie and Harun meet up one last time before she moves out of her old house, and out of his life.





	one for the road

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Week 3, Day 2 of the Humans 4-Week Challenge. The prompt was ‘sharing’.
> 
> If you follow me on tumblr, you probably know I have something of a soft spot for Harun. This is me kind of working through that :P 
> 
> tw for a bit of drug use, because it’s these two

They meet up for old times’ sake, in the usual place, the day before Mattie’s due to leave. It’s so strange, sitting on that bench where they’d shared so many moments - and so many joints - knowing that this is the last time, that tomorrow she’ll be gone for good. 

Harun’s come prepared, of course, but in the last couple of weeks he’s got used to her refusing to smoke, more and more often. He lights up, and she closes her eyes, taking in a little of the scent. 

He watches her, half-smiling. “Sure you don’t want to kill just a few more brain cells? You know. One for the road.” 

She doesn’t open her eyes. “I’m doing that just sitting this close to you.” 

He chuckles. There’s a light tease in her voice, but he’d take even her harshest put-down today. 

“I want to do something,” she says, as if the dark behind her eyelids has made her somehow talkative. “Not like, ‘ooh, I wanna make something of my life and end world hunger’. I have this… goal. Specifically. And if I fail I want it to be because it was impossible, not because I wasted any of my chances.”

“You don’t have to explain,” says Harun, taking another drag. “I get it. Who’d want to end up like me?” 

Her eyes snap open. “It’s not that.” 

He feels a little bad for what he realises now was a micro-manipulation. “I know, really.” He pauses, watching her. “Whatever it is, Mattie, I know you can do it.” His shoulders twitch in what might have been a shrug, had he committed to his nonchalance that much. “You’re the best.” 

“Maybe,” she says. For a while they watch the golfers mill around the course, a synth caddy trailing after its master. The picture of obedience. “What’s the deal here, anyway,” she mumbles. “Are we, like. Long-distance?” 

A weighted question. “As friends? Or…” 

“As whatever it makes people when they kiss once and then never talk about it again.”

He glances away, uneasy. “C'mon. That was just out of pity.” She neither denies nor confirms it. The silence makes him wonder. “I thought… you seemed to regret it afterwards.” 

“Well, I didn’t. Did you?” 

And so he tries, he really tries, to keep his voice sterile, to leave all of the sincerity down inside of him, but somehow it creeps up his throat regardless and spills out in a single syllable. “ _No_.”

The corner of Mattie’s mouth curls up, rueful. “Then…this is a conversation we really should have had earlier.” 

“Probably, yeah.” 

He drums his fingers on his knee, mind far away. “But then, maybe it’s the timing that makes it easier to admit. Like… we can only say it out loud because we know we’re safe from having to do anything about it.” 

Mattie raises her eyebrows. “Pretty deep.” 

“I know. Especially coming from me.” 

That gets her. She laughs, just a few short chimes, but enough to remember it by. “That’s _my_ line.” 

In the quiet after, Harun considers the question that got them here. Are they cut out for anything long-distance? Will they even manage to stay in touch, when it comes down to it, let alone anything else? 

“But you’re right,” Mattie says, eventually. “I was letting you avoid it, in case we had to get too real. Never thought I was that much of a coward.” 

“You, a coward? Nah.” He smiles. “No way I’ve rubbed off on you that much.” 

“You’d be surprised.” She looks back out to the golf course. “We fucked this up, didn’t we.” 

“A bit.” 

“You never know. Maybe we’d have been toxic for each other. Might’ve crashed and burned by this point and not be on speaking terms. At least this way we get to say goodbye.” 

He nods. “Yeah.” He echoes her words, because they’re bitingly true. “You never know.” 

A while later, she turns back to face him. “Go on, then. One for the road.”

Surprised at her change of heart, he goes to hand the joint over, but she shakes her head. “Not that.” She leans in, and they kiss, for the first time since the last time. 

It doesn’t taste of _see you soon_ , but it’s not _goodbye forever_ , either, so he keeps a little bit of hope back before it crosses over to her, along with the rest.


End file.
